1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method for modeling the dial of meters installed in an automobile and other facilities for example.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, the dial of meters installed in an automobile is modeled by forming a transparent colored layer of light color such as white on one side of transparent or translucent flat base material by screen printing means and next forming a shading opaque printed layer of dark color where the contours of a graduation, a digit and others are removed on the surface of the above transparent colored layer by the above screen printing means so that in the daytime, the graduation, the digit and others formed on the dial are viewed by reflected light and at night, the above graduation, the above digit and others are viewed by light from a light source arranged on the back of the above dial.
In means for modeling the above dial, the above transparent colored layer and the opaque printed layer are formed by the screen printing means, however, as base material used by the screen printing means is required to be flat, screen printing on solid base material is difficult and it is difficult to model a solid dial which looks deep for example.
Then, it can be considered that to model a solid dial, a dial is made solid by press forming after a transparent colored layer and an opaque printed layer are formed by the above screen printing means, however, there is a problem that as press forming is further executed after screen printing, the manufacturing cost is increased.
In addition, there is a problem that when press forming is executed after screen printing, a flaw is readily made on a layer to which screen printing is applied and the quality of a dial is deteriorated.
Therefore, it is considered that a dial 1 which looks solid and is shown in FIG. 5 is modeled by producing the three-dimensional model of a dial by computer graphics, projecting the data of the acquired three-dimensional model 7 on a two-dimensional plane, executing rendering (coloring and shading a graduation, a digit, the background and others) by specifying a light source, generating two-dimensional data for making the dial look solid, directly outputting a printing original plate based upon the two-dimensional data and executing gradation printing using the printing original plate.
However, in gradation printing utilizing such computer graphics, as the whole dial 1, the side (the upper side in FIG. 6) close to a light source is light and the side (the lower side in FIG. 6) distant from the light source is dark because rendering is made using the one light source in case a dial 1 is a large-sized combination panel provided with the indicators 3 to 6 of plural meters such as a speed indicator, a tachometer, a fuel gage and a temperature gauge on a faced part 2 as shown in FIG. 6, there is a problem that the indicator 3 to 6 of each meter does not look solid uniformly and the dial 1 causes a sense of incompatibility.
An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide device and a method for modeling a dial by which a satisfactory sense of a solid can be created in the indicator of each meter in case the dial is a combination panel provided with the indicators of plural meters.
To solve the above problems, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a dial modeling device including: a three-dimensional model producing section for individually producing the three-dimensional model of plural indicators forming a dial; a rendering section for executing rendering by specifying a different light source for the three-dimensional model of each indicator acquired in the three-dimensional model producing section, respectively projecting the data of the three-dimensional model to which the rendering is applied on a two-dimensional plane and individually generating two-dimensional data for making each indicator look solid; an image storing section for storing the two-dimensional data of each indicator generated by the rendering section; and an image synthesizing section for synthesizing the two-dimension data of each indicator stored in the image storing section and a faced part forming a part of the dial.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the three-dimensional model producing section individually produces the three-dimensional model of plural indicators forming a dial.
The rendering section executes rendering (coloring and shading a graduation, a digit, the background and others) by specifying a different light source for each indicator when the data of the three-dimensional model of each indicator acquired in the three-dimensional model producing section is projected on a two-dimensional plane and individually generates two-dimensional data for making each indicator look solid.
The two-dimensional data of each indicator generated by the rendering section is stored in the image storing section.
The image synthesizing section synthesizes the two-dimensional data of each indicator stored in the image storing section and the faced part of the dial.
Afterward, the output section directly outputs a printing original plate based upon the synthesized image acquired in the image synthesizing section and finally, the printing section executes gradation printing using the printing original plate output by the output section.
Hereby, the dial which satisfactorily looks solid is modeled.
As described above, as the three-dimensional model of each indicator is individually produced, rendering is executed using an individual light source and acquired two-dimensional data is synthesized in case the dial is a large-sized combination panel provided with plural indicators on the faced part, the dial which causes no sense of incompatibility and looks solid can be modeled even if the dial is the large-sized combination panel. In the case of the large-sized combination panel and others, a uniform dial which looks solid on the right and left sides of which difference in light and darkness is not large can be modeled.
Further, each indicator looks spotlighted to be a fine sight.
In addition, a solid sense of each indicator can be freely adjusted by changing and adjusting the position of a light source every indicator.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a dial modeling method comprising the steps of: producing the three-dimensional model of plural indicators forming a dial individually; executing rendering by specifying a different light source for the acquired three-dimensional model of each indicator; projecting the data of the three-dimensional model to which the rendering is applied on a two-dimensional plane, respectively; generating two-dimensional data for making each indicator look solid individually; and synthesizing the acquired two-dimensional data of the indicator of each meter and a faced part forming a part of the dial.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the similar action and effect to those in the first aspect of the invention can be acquired.